Tim Roberts leads the London office, supported by a strong team of former senior regulators, experienced industry practitioners, and Promontory colleagues globally. They advise clients on the implications of a rapidly changing regulatory environment and support them in responding to it. Promontory's chairman in the United Kingdom is Sir Callum McCarthy, formerly Chairman of the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority and Chief Executive of Ofgem, the U.K.’s energy industry regulator.
Promontory is particularly well-equipped to assist companies adjusting to the U.K.'s new regulatory model and was recently listed on the “Skilled Persons” Panel for s166 reviews commissioned by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority. The team covers all financial sectors, including universal, retail and investment banks, retail and wholesale insurance companies, brokers, asset managers, and hedge funds. Promontory's well-regarded Global Privacy & Data Protection Practice is headquartered in London, and has assisted many firms in responding to increasingly strict data-protection requirements.
Promontory's London team has successfully completed numerous engagements across a wide range of disciplines, including:
- Risk Management — Reviewing the structure and effectiveness of control contributors such as enterprise risk management, compliance, and internal-audit functions, and providing high-level insight or deeper portfolio reviews for aspects of credit, market, operational, and other risk classes.
- Conduct of Business — Examples include financial promotions, quality of advice, sales practices, claims handling, and complaints handling.
- Prudential Issues — Examples include capital planning (including Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process preparation), liquidity management (including Individual Liquidity Adequacy Assessment preparation), and stress-testing reviews.
- Financial Crime — Assisting in the development and execution of a wide range of financial-crime-related topics, including Anti-Bribery and Corruption, Anti-Money-Laundering, Sanctions, and Market Abuse.
- Regulatory Advice — Providing insights into regulatory developments in the U.K., European Union, and United States, enabling clients to develop appropriate national and global regulatory strategies.
- Acquisitions — Assisting clients in understanding the regulatory impact of potential business acquisitions or restructurings, in an advisory capacity or by performing specific work (for example, through due diligence on the broad control infrastructure or asset-portfolio reviews).
- Organizational Enhancement — Helping senior management teams improve the ability of their firms to deliver sustainable compliance, through efforts to redesign and improve their governance (including through board-effectiveness reviews), organization, culture, or core processes such as strategic planning, product development, and sales management.
- Preparing senior management teams for supervisory risk assessments, business-model reviews, and approved-person interviews.
- Privacy — Developing data-protection governance strategies and helping firms put in place programs to deal with data-security breaches, complaints, investigations, or audit requests.